How do you summarize a twenty-year career as a world artist? It’s impossible, but the sexualization of men, the recipe for happiness, and the Iraq War are some of the keywords.

In a conference room where no conference has ever taken place, there is a long table made of some inexplicably loud material. As soon as you touch it, it rings like a church bell. You don’t think that you touch a table that often, but you do. Usually, you can’t concentrate on anything else when the table makes noise. But now, that table doesn’t matter because sitting on the other side of it is Günther. Since 2015, he has declined all participation in Swedish media because they didn’t understand him. Now, he opens up and clarifies a few things.

Swedish media always want something that sounds sexist, because they can’t convey that I am sexual in my expression. I am sexual in myself, they have missed that. I have never been sexual towards anyone else. I turn everything towards myself, if you see the whole picture. There are always more men than women in my videos, but no one sees that.

Are you politically correct (PC)?

I was PC long before everyone else. Twenty years ago. This thing about seeing everyone as equal. Already in the first video, I had a trans person with me. I had guys in tight shorts, and I showed my butt in the first video so that it wouldn’t be sexualized against women. Yet people refuse to accept it. Much has changed in 20 years, it’s a different time today. You don’t think I would make ‘Teeny Weeny String Bikini’ today, do you?

‘I have been sexually harassed in the media for twenty years’

Actually, that question is impossible to answer.

Twenty years ago, it was important for me to show a picture of how things were. People were so tired of hip-hop back then, it was all ‘f*** your bitches.’ That was when I started with my music. I had daughters myself, now I even have grandchildren. Why should Britney and everyone be sexualized? Why not sexualize men? I wanted to see the reaction, and I got to do that. Record company guys were scared when a man, who was their age, came in and just topped the charts. Of course, there’s a little fear – here I come and ruin their vision of little girls to be featured. I do the opposite, I have worked so hard with the contrary, and then I’m turned around in Swedish media. That’s why I said it’s not worth it for me to discuss. I am too deep for this industry. You might think I’m too intelligent to be in it, says Günther.

He thinks that the situation looks somewhat better today compared to when he started – today both women and men are objectified and sexualized, and mental illness is a problem for everyone.

Guys have as much pressure on them as girls. They can’t exist if they don’t have a six-pack. Girls talk among themselves, but guys still don’t talk to each other. That’s why there’s so much mental illness among guys.

Many men have reached out to Günther over the years, especially many from the military, according to him. A clip from 2008 where an American regiment in Baghdad lip-syncs to Günther’s ‘Ding Dong Song’ has almost five million views. The clip is analyzed within the framework of Judith Butler’s theories in the scientific article ‘Understanding the Funny Military Music Video’, where the clip is said to be unusually detailed and popular for the genre.

There are many guys who feel forced to be something they don’t want to be, they feel too soft. Many write that I helped them get through their service, that they listen to my music every day to enter another world. I get messages like that every day. So you shouldn’t minimize anything.

He speaks freely, at length, and thoughtfully about the value of letting people escape from everyday life, allowing them to be themselves, and that he ‘builds on giving hope’. However, when the conversation turns to questions about his upbringing, he becomes unusually reticent and quick in his responses.

When did you start being yourself?

When I was born.

How was your upbringing?

Boring, normal.

Did you feel that you stood out as a child?

Yes.

In a troublesome way?

I don’t know. People think it’s good to stand out. I haven’t been a criminal or had ADHD, I just have a lot of energy and stand by what I think. I did that back then – if someone was bullied, I intervened. I was never dependent on being with the cool kids, then I’d rather go to the weak ones.

The words start flowing again. Günther talks passionately about an older Italian man, his ‘biggest fan’. He sits in a group, I don’t know if it’s in Europe or in the world, where ten old men and women arrogantly try to find the answer to ‘what is happiness’, claims Günther.

This ten minutes after he claimed to be ‘too intelligent for this industry’. It might be true. Either he really knows a signore who ‘somehow… chemically…’ is going to determine what happiness is, or Günther has taken this straight out of the stuffy air of the conference room. I don’t care if it’s fake, it’s incredible anyway.

They have concluded that I am the answer, he continues.

‘Sex is not just the sexual – it’s about finding one’s identity’

In some way, this seamlessly ties into an account of Günther’s long-standing motto; champagne, love, sex, and respect.

It was when I broke through in the USA that I thought the messages were even more important. It stands for more than champagne, love, sex, and respect. Champagne is about pleasure, socializing, what we need. Love is like love, which is the most important thing. Kindness is sexy. Kindness is so exclusive today, but it’s the sexiest thing there is. Sex is not just the sexual – it’s about finding one’s identity. To be a sexual individual. It can be that you are asexual, that you are homosexual, you are straight, you are whatever. That’s what it’s about, not the sexual act itself. And then there’s the conclusion, which is respect. There should always be mutual respect, emphasizes Günther.

Throughout his career, he has experienced all four criteria, and reconciled with being Günther around the clock. But in the well-used passport, it says Mats.

You’re an artist. Not everyone is, but I’m very happy that I am constant. For me, it has never been difficult. So many people are happy just to get two seconds with you, just to take a picture. It’s never unpleasant – I see it as a child on Christmas Eve. It’s not that I’m schizophrenic and think my name is Günther, but people say that to me. When I have builders and am renovating the house, they want to call me Günther. Even though I’m standing there as Mats. For me, it’s mainly two roles that have taken over for 20 years: it’s Günther and it’s dad. Mats hasn’t had much space.

The father role has sometimes triumphed over Günther. No trophies or awards have been on display in the villa outside Malmö, and he describes his daughters as ‘priority one’.

I’ve had them myself for long periods. I planned after that. They wanted me to move to the USA when I broke through, it would have been easier. I said no for the sake of the children. We are very close today, so it’s only a win.

For a few years now, life has included another role – that of a grandfather. She is just like me, she’s like cloned, says Günther about his granddaughter. The obvious follow-up question, whether she has started growing a mustache, evokes strong emotions.

It’s so funny that people always have to talk about my mustache. If you did the same thing with a female artist, it would never be accepted.

If you asked about her mustache?

Or if you asked about her breasts. But sometimes you’re allowed to objectify me. I’ve been sexually harassed in the media for twenty years, which I haven’t even thought about myself. What I work so hard with my music is not to be objectified. To use the sexualized man to remove the pressure that record guys put on bringing out a sixteen-year-old who can be objectified. That’s what I’m against.

It can be interpreted as counterproductive to fight the objectification of women by objectifying men.

Sometimes the best way to show things is to exaggerate them, to make people think ‘how dumb I am’. I like to provoke, but it’s to attract afterward and maybe provide insight.

The testimonials about Günther’s impact seem to be most plentiful in his head. He claims that it’s a big thing in the USA to dress up as Günther on Halloween, and mentions his icon status as a matter of course, in the middle of a sentence. The sentence is interrupted.

How long do you feel you have had icon status?

I got it right away. That’s why it was so easy for me. I wasn’t 16 when I broke through, and then it was easier for me to carry it. Everyone else is dependent on their latest hit. I haven’t been.

Günther is now entering a new phase as an icon. He’s becoming Günther 2.0.

My integrity has been the greatest of all. People might not think that about me, but everyone knows it. To express myself so grandly, I need that enormous integrity. To be so sexual and so grand in my expression and to be that outside, I could never be. I am too grounded for that. But now, after twenty years as an artist, I have nothing more to prove. Now, I am completely letting go of my integrity.

Exactly what Günther 2.0 entails is still a secret Günther keeps. He has created Instagram and Tiktok accounts, which he curates carefully. His latest single, “Sex Myself,” he says, is proof of how he has evolved both as a person and musically. An NFT is in the works. More music is coming. Günther 2.0 is on the horizon, and neither the conference room’s long table, a possibly fictional Italian man, nor the veterans from the Iraq War know what is to come. There’s, damn it, champagne, love, sex, and respect on the way.